Jurassic Park: The Unseen Element
by The Mr E
Summary: I don't know how to tell you what you'll see in this story. Trial, adventure, hurt, humour, fiction, revelation. Not in one breath. Not in many. Instead, I'm going to tell you the truth. Sometimes the most amazing things in this world are the things you haven't seen. The words in this story are only words, but I have faith that in the end, you will see something more.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

25 Years

"You guys uh, catch up," suggested Mark Degler as he got up from the table to check on their infant son who was crying for the umpteenth time over who-knows-what.

"Thanks, babe," said Ellie, now 'Mrs. Degler'.

So he left, leaving only his wife and their dinner guest, world-renowned paleontologist Dr Alan Grant – coincidentally two of the lucky survivors of the nightmare that was called 'Jurassic Park'. So much had happened since then. They had split up, she got married, etc, but they were still friends, close as ever.

"He's a great guy," stated Alan.

Ellie smiled in response.

"So, what are you working on now?" she asked.

"Raptors, mostly," Allan responded.

"Oh, my favourite," was her sarcastic comment.

Allan leaned forward on his elbows as his manner grew a shade darker, "Do you remember the **sounds **they made?"

A chilling flash of memories spiked through Ellie's mind. Their strength, their speed, but most of all, it was the way they looked at you. They weren't like lions or bears or even T Rexes. No, when a raptor looked at you, you could see that horrifying glint of intelligence and when they acted, they knew exactly what to do to kill you, and how to do it fast.

Ellie smiled, but her answer was quick and categorical. "I try not to,"

Dr Grant continued. "All our theories about raptor intelligence, what they were capable of, we weren't even close."

Ellie's interest sparked. "Tell me."

"Well," he began. "We did cranial scans of a fossil skull and found what looks like a _very_ sophisticated resonating chamber."

"Wait a second, so we were right?" Ellie asked. "They, they had the ability to vocalize?"

"It's the **key** to their social intelligence," Grant confirmed.

"Which explains why they could work as a team," she went on.

"They'd coordinate their attacks so their prey wouldn't know what was going on," he explained.

Ellie paused. "They could talk to eachother?"

"To a degree we _**never**_ imagined," Allan confirmed.

She shook her head in semi-disbelief, but he wasn't done yet.

"Ellie, they were **smart**. They were smarter than dolphins or whales – they, were smarter, than **primates."**

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Way off the coast of Puerto Rica lay a chain of five, small islands – 'Las Cinco Muertes', literally Spanish for 'The Five Deaths.'

Gone was the Jurassic Park built to draw millions from the ends of the Earth. They'd bombed it. After the first catastrophic events, those creatures could not be allowed to survive. But this was home to Site B, where the dinosaurs were originally bred before the park even existed. Here, its legacy lived on.

**25.** It had been **25** years since man had set foot on this lost world, and the islands were flourishing. Each had its own population of prehistoric life, but the largest, most diverse of these islands was Isla Sorna.

It was beautiful - from the verdurous plains, shadowy marshes and crystal lakes to its breath-taking, mountainous heights.

This day was no different. The soft glow of morning sunlight permeated the lush canopy as a savoury freshness filled the atmosphere. However, the pleasant ambiance was the farthest thing from a certain creature's mind.

The foliage hid its massive size as it sauntered on its hind legs across the slightly slanted jungle floor. Standing at over 5 meters (16 feet) tall, this was a creature straight out of your nightmares. Its muscular, 8 foot arms were tipped with 3, flesh-ripping 4½ foot claws on every hand.

It was called a 'therizinosaurus', which meant 'scythe lizard'. A herbivore, but any who encountered it face to face would find that this plant-eater was one of the most vicious, evil-tempered creatures of the jungles, and trespassing on its territory was the only reason it needed to butcher you on the spot.

The Therizino raised its small head and sniffed. There was more in the air than the woodland aromas. There was the smell of predator.

A deep growl rumbled in its throat as its steps became silent. Its rage grew as it moved closer and closer to the offensive scent until it stuck its head through a wall of tall bushes.

Just down a small incline under a large tree up ahead, a pair of twin utahraptors were playfully fighting with each other. One male, the other female, they were both nearly 6 foot tall pre-adults – not at all quite juveniles, but not full-blown mature as yet either. Their camouflage patterns of greens and such had barely reached adequate complexity while the yellow marks on their backs were just beginning to appear.

Such rough-housing was essential to the development of their hunting and combat skills, but they were upwind, and seemed more or less completely unaware of the beast watching them from the shadows.

It didn't care. It only wanted them dead.

Leaves went flying and branches broke by the legions as it burst out of the bushes and charged the two raptors with a mighty roar. It was practically right on top of them when a sharp pain stung into its ankle.

The Therizino tripped and came crashing to the ground. It quickly stumbled to its feet and looked about. The raptors were nowhere to be seen, but its ankle now bore a pair of jaw marks.

The bushes were definitely agitated, and the creature could hear the hidden enemies' complex vocalizations. It glanced to and fro, but they seemed to be everywhere, yet nowhere at the same time.

It turned to a bush that suddenly rustled distinctly, emanating a cackling string of bird-like twitters.

The Therizinosaurus began to approach the hiding spot when a speedy blur shot by its feet and its other ankle had suffered a fresh, similar bite.

Once again, there was no immediate enemy to be seen.

A patch of tall grass shook with hidden life and a similar series of vocalizations.

The Therizino took a step towards it, when it caught motion by the side of its eye. It barely turned its head before a green figure leaped onto its side and razor-sharp claws dug into its hide.

The titan shrieked and thrashed about, but the stealthy attacker jumped off its side and lightly landed a dozen feet away, perfectly unharmed.

For the first time, the Therizino was face to face with its new enemy.

She snarled viciously, her body low in a stance of battle - a young adult utahraptor, unlike the other two. Her 6 foot tall, 10 foot long body was largely covered in a disruptive montage of greens, with feet and lower legs a mulchy, dark-green. Stripes of bright, semi-fluorescent yellow dashed across her back, while a number of feathers were strewn upon the top of her head and neck, along with the sides on the ends of her tail - each beginning in a sky-azure that faded to navy at the tips. Her eyes were blue, but not like a human's – more of an exotic, deep sapphire that gleamed with a lethal luster of intelligence.

It rushed her as she slinked back into the shadows, and tore into the bushes with its cutlass-like claws, but she was already hidden and out of harm's way.

The Therizino was becoming frantic, wildly looking about at even the slightest sound. Watching from the bushes, she knew it had no idea how many attackers it was facing, or when and where they would attack from next. That kept it off balanced – a recipe for defeat. In truth and in fact, there was no legion of raptors hidden in the shadows. It was just her, and the twins who were under her command. But the Therizino didn't know that, so if she played her cards right, they could continue to take turns distracting and blind-siding it until they had it cut down to size.

The greens of her camouflage tone began to gently pulsate. This was metachrosis – the ability to change colour, and it was a definite edge to her stealth ability.

She idly tapped the ground with the sickle-like, 7 inch killing claw on her innermost toe, waiting for an opportunity to ambush the creature again, when one of the twins rushed in to attack.

That was a very bad angle. The creature would spot him in a second!

She called to the younger raptor, commanding him to stop. He froze up and tried to run away, just before the Therizino's claws came swiping in and struck the predator into the large tree's trunk.

The monster bellowed victoriously as the young raptor tried to get up, only to fall in disorientation. He wasn't wounded, but the blunt impact had more or less knocked him out.

This was bad. A direct stab from this creature could run straight through a raptor's body. There was going to have to be a change of plans.

The Therizino approached the young raptor, ready to finish him off, when the adult stepped between the two, snarling for it to stay away.

The clawed lizard would have none of it. It charged towards the two raptors, shattering the atmosphere with a terrible roar.

She was severely outmatched, but rushed the giant all the same.

The two dinosaurs reached each other and she veered around its claws as they struck the earth before running her own blades across its leg as she darted by. This wasn't a critical blow but it sealed the opponent's attention.

It whipped around to attack again, but she was nowhere in sight.

Suddenly, she sprang at it from the side, grabbing its smallish neck with her jaws and swinging her body onto its back. With another jaw-hold to the neck she secured her footing while trying to dig her killing claws down into its spine.

The Therizino flayed about in a wild attempt to get her off and she fell on her side, only to scamper to her feet as three daggers came down in her place.

It lashed out, again and again, but she was light and fast, deftly dancing away from each and every strike.

The battle raged on as the fallen raptor's sister came to his side. She nudged him softly but briskly in an attempt to convey the urgency of the situation. It didn't work, so she gave him a pinching nip that instantly jolted him awake. With unusually gentle care, the female helped her brother to his feet as his strength began to return.

The adult raptor jumped back, barely missing a face full of claw. She wasn't getting anywhere, but she was learning: its motions, its thought pattern, its attack style, anatomical limits, level of adaptive intelligence, all piecing together to form a complex yet deadly biological map within her mind.

Seeing a window in its defenses, she darted between its legs and struck a calculated slash of the killing claw to its calf before dipping under its tail and slashing the other one.

It worked. She could see the leg injuries were a serious hindrance, but it still turned around to face her just as she predicted. No sooner had she called a command than the other two were tearing at its heels. When it tried to face _**them,**_ she skipped up its back and clamped her jaws around its neck as she dug her killing claws deep into its back again.

Between the leg injuries and the attackers, the creature could no longer coordinate itself against the overwhelming assault.

Finally, her claw pushed through, and a wail of agony pierced through the air.

The Therizinosaurus fell as she hopped off its back and the raptors withdrew.

It could no longer move its legs, its lower body limp and useless, as she had severed several critical neurons in its vertebral column.

The younger raptors glanced at each other and began to move in but she stopped them. The young adult noticed something strange about the Therizino's behavior. There was nothing it could do to fight or escape them, yet it began to drag itself away in a very specific direction.

She tilted her head. Just what was it trying to do?

Slowly but surely, the creature lugged its limp body behind a pair of large rocks.

The sapphire-eyed raptor hopped atop one of these boulders to get a better view. There was a nest, full of eggs, and the Therizino's last act was to curl its body around them, before weakly bellowing at the raptors in a final attempt to ward them off.

It only wanted to protect its babies.

She lowered her killing claws as a very rare feeling set in - remorse. It was rare, but she knew how to obey it.

The utahraptor hopped down from her perch and rejoined the others, calling off the attack altogether. They were puzzled but followed her lead without protest as they began to walk away. However, they were barely 30 yards away when they heard a terrible wailing that belonged to the creature they had left.

She rushed back to find the Therizino – silenced and unmoving as another raptor stood over its body. A spray of violet feathers tipped in black grew on her head, upper neck and tail. Her camouflage colourations had dark motif, compared to the sapphire-eyed raptor. Other than that, their appearance was very similar. That was understandable. This was her sister.

She was a creature armed with the razor's blade of deadly power and very little reluctance to use it. In a battle, she was elemental - completely relentless, completely remorseless.

The sapphire-eyed raptor revered her. For years she had looked up to her as a rule of life, always trying to follow in her footsteps and gain her approval. Now, however, she felt nothing for her sibling except horror.

The other raptor's gaze met hers. She could see the dread in her younger sister's eyes, but she could care less about it. In fact, she seemed slightly amused.

She dismissed her sibling as she noticed the clutch of eggs in the nest nearby. The raptor leisurely sauntered over, picked one up in her jaws and crunched into it.

The sapphire-eyed raptor's horror turned to rage.

She rushed the older raptor and threw all her weight into her side, knocking her to the ground.

All four raptors were stunned as an uncomfortable silence fell over them. The older raptor just lay there, staring up at her and blinking in disbelief. A chilling sense of shock washed over her. It wasn't regret, but she knew she had stepped out of line.

She apologetically tried to help her sister to her feet, only to be knocked off her own and find herself pinned to the ground. Her sister's killing claw was at her throat while her fiery, dark-lilac eyes burnt down into her. However, suddenly, the older raptor calmed down, stepping off her sister as if permitting her to get up.

The younger raptor was surprised, but she didn't buy it. She knew her sister. This wasn't like her. She would never give up a chance to assert her dominance under normal circumstances. But the thing was, she didn't see that in her sister's eyes. They seemed unusually settled, forgiving even. Perhaps she was finally coming to respect her sibling. After all, she must have known who brought down the creature in the first place.

The anger for what her sister had done faded to an ember as the sapphire-eyed raptor slowly got to her feet, staring up at the other raptor in curiosity.

Suddenly, she received a whipping tail to the face, followed by a swift combination of slashes before the elder brought her foot up into the other's chin, causing the raptor to stumble.

The younger utahraptor shook her head in dizziness, an intense stinging sensation in her cheek. She didn't have to look – she knew what it was. Two of her sister's tail feathers were lodged within her skin. They weren't like the feathers on the rest of her body. No, they were more like the quills of a porcupine, easily falling off into the flesh of an opponent and delivering a fast-acting toxin that caused an unbearable burning sensation, racing of the heart and could plunge the body into a deadly state of shock. Being of the same species, she wasn't completely affected by the poison, but it was enough to dull her senses and speed by a critical notch.

She began to back away, cooing submissively as the other raptor approached with a threatening, brisk walk.

The twins watched in concern as the punishment continued, but they dared not interfere. They knew their rank, and they were all but completely helpless to defy it.

The older raptor clamped her jaws around her sibling's neck and began to squeeze, gradually cutting off her victim's air supply. The younger could do nothing about it. If she had fought, she may have stood a chance against her sibling, but that was not how things worked among them. She was guilty of insubordination, and it was her duty to stand still and take whatever came.

Suddenly, an order sounded through the air.

The elder released her and the four raptors immediately straightened up, standing at attention.

The white-feathered head utahraptor had arrived, along with the three dozen others who formed the pack. In a predominantly female society, her gender was no surprise. Her left arm was completely missing due to some past encounter with a T Rex. But it was barely even a handicap. She had survived and conquered an astonishing amount of similar ordeals in her life, which left her with a profound wealth of experience. For her, defeat was nearly unheard of.

Her misty grey eyes inspected the two sisters. She immediately noticed the sapphire-eyed one was pretty bruised up, but still managed to present herself with a certain level of stateliness.

She gazed over to the fallen therizinosaurus and back to the two, as if asking who was responsible for it.

The older sister stepped forward, claiming the credit, while the younger one looked away slightly. She didn't want any association with this hunt.

The leader was silent, but the younger sister knew she probably wasn't fooled. She was very wise but seldom made a sound unless it was absolutely necessary. That was the reason for her title.

Of course, utahraptors didn't have names. Not like us, at least, but they had a way of identifying themselves with different things. Conditions, concepts, traits of nature – anything, and she was identified with the very fabric of soundlessness – that unpredictable yet absolute quiet that sometimes meant peace and other times the deceptive calm before a storm. Her 'name' was the concept of Silence.

Silence sounded a sharp, commanding call and all the other raptors lowered themselves to the ground in a uniform manner.

The azure-feathered raptor didn't understand what was going on. She watched as the one-armed leader walked among them, examining each subordinate as she passed by.

Silence stopped in front of a bowing raptor. She raised her killing claw and lifted her right foot above his head. The blue-feathered raptor's eyes widened slightly. Was this an execution?

Resting the talon on his head, the one-armed leader slowly cut a deep but surgically precise, jagged incision up the side of his temple.

The younger raptor's sapphire eyes lit up as she figured out what was going on. This was a ceremony, and Silence was soon to pass down her leadership to another raptor. She would bestow upon a select few a scratch that would heal into a very distinct scar - a mark that distinguishes them as nominees for the rank of leader. A special hunt would follow in which the candidates had to prove themselves worthy of the title. Only one would receive another scratch that would complete their mark and seal their place as new head. The other candidates would be eliminated, as the leader's first official act.

Silence marked several others before she came to the older sister. The blue-eyed raptor watched as her navy and black-feathered sibling received the scratch as well. She was surprised, but she knew she shouldn't be. Her sister had 22 years of experience and she'd used it well. Her skills, mind and aggressive personality would definitely impact the pack's performance and attitude, had she been leader. Still, her inability to consider the finer details and collateral damage was ever present. She'd probably sacrifice a few subordinates just to ensure victory in any scenario, and she could pretty much get away with anything she wanted when it came to her little sister's treatment. The younger raptor dreaded the thought. All the same, these brutal characteristics were her identity – Virulent.

The younger female felt a bit depressed at the possibility of her sister becoming absolute leader, but that didn't compare to the astonishment of Silence stopping in front of her next. It just so happened that Silence was her mother, but that was an almost irrelevant fact. There was scarcely anything motherly about her relationship with her daughter. She didn't even raise her – that was the nurses' job. Their family relation was just a biological arrangement.

However, for the first time, well, ever, her mother's eyes softened as she looked down on her offspring.

The head utahraptor carefully began to etch her mark across the young raptor's temple. It hurt. Sure, but she barely flinched. She could hardly believe the great Silence had deemed her worthy of becoming the (possible) new leader. But Silence had good reason.

Utahraptors had a peculiar way of aging. Unlike velociraptors, who were 'lethal at 10 months', their kind took a full 1½ years for them to reach near-maximum size and power. Even at this age they were not full-scale adults. Though very sizeable and deadly, they lacked feathers; could not reproduce; their camouflage hues were a little too simple and they ranked below their elders, missing the skill and experience to be taken seriously. It was only at age 11 that these 'pre adults' became true young adults, undergoing a radical change in attitude and developing new traits and an extra ounce of strength that made them that much more capable.

The raptor with blue feathers was 15. She didn't even have a title yet. Regardless, her accomplishments in that short span of maturity were amazing.

Only the pre adult 7-year-old twins were at her daughter's command. Yet, with limited resources and a hand full of experience, she had proven incredibly calculative, quick-witted and dexterous with skills that far surpassed those of even Silence's when she was her age. Most astonishing was the fact that after all these dangerous exploits, both the twins were completely unharmed. It could have been luck, but that was not the case. She knew how to protect them, but she also knew how to succeed. That was a very rare trait – one Silence had never quite seen before.

The lead raptor knelt down and gave her daughter a rare nudge of motivation. There was no missing the seething glare from Virulent, but she tried to ignore it. She didn't show it, but she was far too overjoyed to let anything ruin the moment.

Silence rose to her feet and walked away, followed by the rest of the pack, while her newly nominated daughter stood behind, digesting the whole event. There was something else - something known by no one but her.

While she knelt, her mother had whispered something into her ear. She had given her a title. It was the element of things that were hidden, invisible. The element of

Unseen.


	2. Chapter 2

Utahraptor communication was a very different from any human language. In some ways, it was a lot more restrictive, because when you exchanged information, it wasn't about you. You didn't talk about emotions or your day or say 'Hey! How's the wife?'. When you 'talked', it was almost strictly business. However, this was the reason why in other ways, it was far more efficient. A leader could fire certain commands in only a split second. A call could be sounded across long distances. Strategies could be discussed and decided upon in only a few seconds. Theirs was a language of combat, hunting and survival.

Their way of describing places and directions was very different as well, yet incredibly precise. For example, a tree was labeled as a large, non-living (according to their knowledge) protrusion of a general shape-type that reaches a considerable height above ground-level. A lake or river was a gap in the earth replaced with a floor of water, extending a certain distance below ground level.

Unseen had been given such directions and descriptions before but never so many at the same time. But this was a special occasion, and Silence wanted to make sure she had the ability to retain and follow complex instructions.

The newly named raptor was supplied with three helpers and sent off in a very specific direction westwards through the forests. Once she came upon a familiar river, she was to follow it for 5 definite right turns and 8 left ones until she scented the smell of a herd of herbivores grazing on an open field. But they weren't her target. She had to travel around the outskirts of the pasture without being detected by any of the plant-eaters (her 'helpers' would be sure to vouch for her following/breaking the rules). Upon circling about two thirds of the field, she was to make a sharp right turn away from the herbivores and continue on until she entered a 'place of many rocks'.

All these instructions were a tad overwhelming, but Unseen had followed them like a pro to this point.

So there she was, prowling through the tricky terrain of this very unfamiliar place. It was like a giant, natural rock garden. There were boulders of all sizes everywhere, strewn about like the discarded toys of some giant toddler. However, it was the massive, monolithic ones that dominated the environment. Many of the epic giants were large enough to hide the most fearsome creatures on the island, and they were so numerous that they cut the area into something of a maze.

Regardless, the lack of visibility combined with the numerous, semi-large ferns and bushes were perfect for the raptors to move without being seen.

She'd never been here before, but the mission was simple yet very ambiguous – to retrieve the egg of a large, very specific, formidable but completely unfamiliar kind of creature. Exactly what _kind _of creature was for her to figure out.

Normally, she would have been a little more squeamish about taking another creature's eggs, but with her leadership a possibility, she decided to put aside her own personal feelings.

The four raptors slinked behind one of the boulders, Unseen in the lead. She could clearly hear something shuffling behind it, and taste its scent.

She discreetly peered beyond it and spotted a pachycephalosaurus. The dome-headed, two-legged lizard was lazily munching on a few ferns, while guarding a recently-built nest full of eggs not two meters away.

Unseen thought for a second. She'd never seen such a creature before, but it was only 8 feet tall and 24 feet long – not nearly as formidable as she'd expected. Still, it was much bigger than she, and she had a hunch that its crash helmet-like head was more of a weapon than it looked. Plus, it had a clutch of eggs. It had to be the creature Silence had described and overcoming it seemed like the easiest task ever.

Almost without even realizing it, Unseen began swaying her body from side to side in excitement. This was, for want of a better term, her 'happy dance', and it did make her look uncharacteristically adorable. Only she was usually alone or with younger company when such flights of immatureness came over her, so she was too late when she stopped, realizing that three, older raptors were standing right behind her.

She looked back. Sure enough, the female was giving her a steady 'what are you doing?' look while the two males seemed slightly amused.

She snorted in irritation. That was embarrassing.

Ready to get over the awkward moment, Unseen twittered and chirped a series of commands and each raptor went off in a separate direction.

The dome-head took another bite of fresh greenery when it heard something. It raised its head and listened. It was the mating call of a male pachycephalosaurus, and it sounded very near. The creature stopped chewing and kept its ears pealed. It heard the sound again and realized it was coming from behind a large rock to the right.

The pachycephalosaurus walked over to the boulder to investigate, only to find nothing on the other side.

Another mating call sounded only this time it seemed to echo between the rocks so that you couldn't tell exactly what direction it was coming from.

The dome-headed dinosaur was a little confused, until it heard yet another call coming from beyond a corner up ahead.

It followed the sound, not even realizing what it had come so close to when it passed a seemingly ordinary rock structure. To the untrained eye, that could have been just what it was, until a small section _**peeled**_ its **head** off the face of the boulder. The reptilian 'head' watched as the herbivore disappeared into the stone maze, before the rest of its dromaesauroid body began to gently shift off the surface.

It was Unseen, her scales now greyed to a mottled rocky tone accented by a mossy blotch here and there so that she'd blended into the boulder background so perfectly.

The pachycephalosaurus was being led away by an assisting raptor entitled 'Jumping Sound', which literally meant Echo. Unseen had made it a point to learn about her fellow raptors when she had the chance. This male was exceptionally skilled in the art of vocalization. He could flawlessly mimic the sounds of almost any other creature on the island and project his voice in such a way that it sounded as if it were coming from some place, or everywhere, yet it wasn't. If the need arose, he could also unleash an intense scream channeled into a concentrated ray of sound, stunning and even incapacitating an enemy at close enough range. It was very similar to a human sonic weapon, called the 'LRAD', and the closest similarity in nature was the booming call a sperm whale used to knock out its prey.

The male and female raptors hidden in the ferns behind her thought it was interesting that she was trying to accomplish the task without even letting the creature know they were there. Plus she seemed to know a lot about using the talents of her fellow comrades. But Unseen was now having a hard time paying attention, caught in some contemplative thought about the situation.

The female nipped her, not-too-gently reminding her to stay focused.

Unseen snapped back at her with a snarl, asserting her dominance for the time being.

The other raptor scoffed inwardly. She wasn't the boss of her just yet.

Unseen commanded the female to stand guard while the male, dubbed Feet Made of Wind, or Footed Wind for short, was to follow her. The two quickly skulked through the bushes and reached the nest in one or two moments.

The young utahraptor gently lifted one of the eggs in her jaws, ensuring that it didn't break in the process.

She turned to leave, but realized that Footed Wind wasn't moving. At all. He was just sort standing completely frozen, his eyes fixed on something behind her. Unseen found this odd, but she wasn't thinking the way she should on the field.

She squawked a little indiscreetly at the fellow raptor, trying to get his attention.

He didn't budge, but his gaze slowly shifted towards her, eyes full of unmoving panic, before gradually looking back to whatever he was staring at.

Unseen didn't get it, but she suddenly noticed the female lookout had been giving her a silent distress call that had slipped her mind for the past few moments.

She sensed something behind her, suddenly coming in fast, and it all made sense.

The young raptor and assistant darted forward as a pair of ghastly jaws slammed shut in their place.

Once at a safe distance she turned to see the attacker's desperately manic eyes staring down at her. It was 12 feet tall and 30 feet long, covered in a tough hide of red and black. A theropod, like the T rex or allosaurus - smaller than both, but its body was built for power and driven by a senseless thirst to kill that some might argue was completely psychopathic. It was a ceratosaurus.

Unseen knew of such large predators, and had seen what they had done to the mashed up bodies of raptors who couldn't escape their jaws. But she'd never seen one for herself.

It barely gave a second's hesitation before it charged towards the raptors like a freight train, crushing the pachycephalosaurus nest in the process.

She didn't even think about challenging it.

The three raptors took off into the rock garden, closely pursued by the relentless predator.

They darted 'round a corner and she bumped into something, falling onto her side and barely stopping herself from breaking the egg. It was Jumping Sound, who had also fallen over due to the impact.

She began to scold him when another ceratosaurus reared into view behind him, while their pursuer closed in from the opposite direction. There were **two.**

Unseen made a quick combination of head gestures and the raptors split up, the two giants viciously grazing flesh against eachother as they collided by the weight of their own momentum. They shook off the impact and separated after the closest raptor in sight.

She kicked up sprinkles of dust and plant-pieces as the cerato thundered behind her like a raging storm. She leaped over a large, old, fallen tree trunk before it simply tore through, sending splinters flying asunder.

Unseen couldn't risk confronting this creature in any way. Not at the risk of breaking the egg in her jaws. That egg was her life. Losing it meant the end of more than just her chances at leadership. But the ceratosaurus was maneuverable, and seemed to know every path she took with pin-point accuracy. She couldn't shake it without reaching speeds dangerous to the egg's safety. She had to fight or escape it – without laying a claw on it.

Without opening her mouth any wider, she sounded her best 'answer me' call, which was geared to finding out where the other raptors were. They responded with similar calls, but only Jumping Sound was available at the moment – the others busy trying to escape the other predator.

She summoned him as she made a sharp turn, avoiding a pair of lunging jaws. Unseen sounded another 'answer me' call and both Footed Wind and the female whose title she didn't know responded.

She turned right with purpose and made another call, receiving another, more intricate response from every other raptor.

Unseen took two lefts and ended up running down a corridor surrounded by more constant rock formations forming two walls on either side.

The ceratosaurus didn't notice, but Jumping Sound was running across the rocky ridge alongside the two dinosaurs, a few yards higher than the attacker's head.

The cera reached full-speed as they neared a rocky arch close to end of the path.

She released one, final call and Jumping Sound leaped onto the side of the creature. It swung its head around in an attempt to get him off, only to bash its skull against the archway with the full force of its speed as it passed under. It staggered as broken rocks fell around it, and Jumping Sound hopped off its side, retreating to safety as the other male and female scampered by its feet.

The carnivore didn't have the chance to react before the other ceratosaurus, still pursuing the raptors who had just passed, slammed into its side, sending both ceras crashing into the rocky wall. There was a tumultuous cracking and breaking of rocks as the stone barrier began to shatter and the creatures fell through to the other side. The raptors scrambled to get clear of the chaos but Unseen was caught by the flaying tail of a ceratosaurus, flung off her feet and through the crashing wall with the two monsters.

The egg slipped out of her grasp before she landed on a meagerly soft surface. She quickly looked about for any sign of the precious cargo and found it – two feet in front of her, cracked wide open with yellow yolk spilling out onto the ground. Her spirits sank as she stared at its remains, before noticing where she was.

It was some kind of nest – much like that of an eagle, only much bigger, covering about the area of a medium-sized house. It was made of old broken trees, systematically structured and covered in a slightly soft combination of dead ferns mixed with a foul paste of fresh and old semi-digested meat. More importantly, it was littered with eggs about twice the size of the one she had attempted to steal.

The whole thing reeked of rotting flesh and droppings. She hated that, much less _touching_ it, but in the midst of it all there was the distinct smell of ceratosaurus.

It all became clear. The two ceratosauruses were male and female – mates, and this was their nest, tucked away behind the rocky wall where few enemies would be able to find a way to it. Her target was never the pachycephalosaurus. It was the **ceras,** and here she was, right in the middle of her goal destination without a ceratosaurus in sight.

She still didn't know where they were, though, so she kept vigilant with her head low as she began to creep about, trying to decide which egg to carry (i.e., had the least pieces of meat-paste and dung clinging onto it). She sniffed one particular egg and found that it smelled a little funny. This egg was dead. It just didn't 'make it' that far in development. It was probably the recent weather – not very good for the egg-baring of some dinosaurs.

Unseen decided to pick that one. After all, Silence didn't say the egg had to be alive. She wasn't even sure why she cared, but this choice felt more comfortable so she went with it.

The egg clutched within her jaws, she lightly made her way to the edge of the nest, only to find herself overlooking a sheer drop into the jungle below. She was surprised she hadn't realized earlier, but this nest was at the edge of a cliff just on the rim of the rock maze.

That made sense. The ceras must have fallen over the edge when they broke through the wall, while she was lucky enough to land in their nest. That was why she couldn't sense them.

A slight familiar chirp called her attention and she looked to the opposite side of the nest and found that it was suspended by a massive, extremely sturdy dead tree trunk jutting out of a grassy slope at the tip of the cliff, forming something of a bridge back to solid ground. Just beyond that grassy patch, the other three raptors stood in place of the fallen wall.

She'd earned their respect. She could tell, but they still didn't take her as seriously as they would have had she been a little older. That was pretty obvious when the female called her – again – hastening her to hurry back.

That irked Unseen a bit but she was a little too relieved to pay it any mind.

She took a step towards the trunk when, suddenly, the ferocious head of a cerato reared up beside the bridge, followed by the other. Unseen froze on the spot. They obviously hadn't fallen, but rather slipped to a lower part of the cliff that was out of the raptors' sight. But they were back, and they were more furious than ever.

One ceratosaurus thundered up the grassy slope, chasing after the other raptors while the other turned its attention to Unseen.

It nimbly climbed onto the trunk bridge and began moving towards her, that insane blood-excitement in its eyes. She backed away as her mind began searching for a way out. She couldn't jump across to the slope and she couldn't pass the cera – not on that one-way path. The only other option was down, but that obviously wasn't much of an option.

She lowered her head and snarled at the creature, trying to look as intimidating as possible, but that seemed to make it even more eager to get to her.

Unseen lunged towards the cerato, making aggressive advances without attacking it. She hoped that these gestures would make it try to attack her prematurely and lose its footing, but the ceratosaurus was patient, and soon it had set foot on the nest.

The two creatures stared at each other in a standstill. It knew she couldn't escape – not without passing it first, but it wanted to see her try. She could see that in its eyes.

Unseen rushed to its right, only to suddenly veer to its left in an attempt to confuse it, but she had to jump backwards as the ceratosaurus arched its jaws at her with surprising flexibility. She drew back and shot towards it head on, seemingly about to confront it, but as she reached its near-striking range, she took to the air with a massive leap.

For a moment, the world seemed to hang on a frozen second as she sailed above the creature's head. She was going to make it when suddenly the cera's raised tail came at her and smacked her out of the air.

The egg slipped out of Unseen's mouth before she tumbled across the nest, stopping at the far side.

The ceratosaurus lifted its head and made a cackling roar – almost like a laugh.

She shook off the dizzy and looked at the egg. It was broken.

Suddenly, she all but lost her feet as the nest jolted violently. The ceratosaurus had dug its foot down into the foundation with all its might. It was trying to tear off her side of the nest.

It struck the structure another critical blow and she fell on her stomach as many of the eggs rolled onto her section. She couldn't believe any creature would care so little about its offspring.

Her footing was slanted and that part of the structure was only holding on by a thread.

The cera brought its foot down in one last stamp and the side of the nest she was on began to break away with a horrible series of snaps and cracks. She began to run towards a rolling egg when the entire structure broke off, careening down the cliff side and crashing through the forest's canopy with a calamitous crunch.

The ceratosaurus sounded its victory – a bellow that swept across the jungle like thunder.

Down below, the sight was grave. A deathly stillness hovered over the remains of the ceratosaurus nest. Broken egg was scattered across the ground and there was no sign of life.

A compsognathus stuck its head out from behind a rock it had used to take cover. The green, chicken-sized, slightly raptor-like theropod tilted its head in twitchy movements as it examined the wreckage. It gave a calling peep and suddenly the whole area was swarming with Compies – tweeting and twittering like little birds as they began to voraciously devour the scattered egg yolks.

One compey raised its head and spotted a utahraptor, her limp, unmoving body pinned beneath a trunk in the wreckage of the nest.

Soon, many of its comrades had noticed the fallen predator as well.

Forgetting their egg-yolk bounty, they skipped towards the raptor and began to hungrily nibble on her body. Her sapphire eyes shot open as she realized she was being eaten alive.

Unseen blazed to life as she violently thrashed about, throwing off a few of the two-legged piranhas. But they came back and rejoined the rest, completely intent on devouring their victim. They weren't afraid. She was obviously trapped, so there was nothing to deter their hunger.

She knew she was defenseless so instead of trying to put up a fight, she planted her feet on the footing behind her and pooled her energy into pulling herself from underneath the log. A thousand, frenzied little bites lit up around her. She felt to scream, but instead she pushed that energy into a desperate bout of hysterical strength. Suddenly, the two tons of weight above her gave way and she slipped out, rolling across the ground to stop just a few yards away.

The compies watched in silence as she rose to her feet. She had to be injured after the fall, their assault and the effort she had made to escape. Yet there she was – standing there without a hint of pain or serious injury.

Her blue eyes blazed and feathers stood on end with fury as she gave them a venomous hiss. They hesitated, but soon retreated with reluctance. They weren't **that** desperate… at the moment…

The raptor watched as the last of the compies disappeared into the bushes. She listened for their tiny tweets for about thirty seconds after they had left her sight. They were gone.

Certain of her being alone, Unseen slumped and collapsed onto one leg in pain and fatigue, throbbing all over. The last thing she needed was for those little creeps to know she was weakened. But there was no time to rest.

Unseen leaned over, gently squeezing her throat muscles upwards until a smooth, white item fell out of her mouth. It was a ceratosaurus egg she'd just managed to swallow before the fall, storing it in her crop for safekeeping.

She carefully examined every inch of its surface and found that it was completely intact, despite all the trauma her body had gone through. That eased her spirits, until she pressed the side of her head against it. The large gaps in the ear-regions of her skull allowed her to hear sounds of a very low pitch. She could hear a heartbeat.

Unseen drew back and stared at the egg for a long sixty seconds. Poor little one. It didn't even have a chance to fight back and survive in life. It was completely unaware of the realities around it and completely unable to affect them. There was this flickering notion that she was no better than the ceratosaurus.

She nuzzled the little egg in a rare show of apology and sympathy, but her heart hardened as she remembered the rules of life. Everyone could see it.

Life was the destiny to die.

Everything she protected or destroyed was doomed to pass away some time. A baby ceratosaurus would definitely devour her had it grown up and had the chance, so everything was fairly unfair, right? She had to be right, but she didn't want to think about it. In fact, she hated thinking about it – it made her feel empty and valueless. That wouldn't help. She needed to stay focused or she'd lose everything.

Tenderly lifting the egg in her jaws, she swallowed it once again and set off for home.


	3. Chapter 3

**In our hearts, we plan a course, but we do not direct our steps.**

**?**

Chapter 3

It Changed Everything

Silence gazed down into the smooth waters of the brook below her, swimming in the secret lake of her thoughts. Behind her reflection blazed the fiery expanse of the evening sky, sewn together with brilliant pinks, purples, yellows and oranges, all costarring the dominant masterpiece that was the sun. She touched her chin against the cool, soothing surface and tiny ripples danced across its face. Finally, she soundlessly dunked her snout into the water and took a few solid gulps.

Having satisfied her thirst, Silence lifted her head and walked back into the shade of the jungle. She took her time, noiselessly drifting through the forest like a phantom. The sun wasn't far from setting and the somber shadows of dusk were creeping across the jungle as sentries of night's peaceful invasion.

It was moments like these when her silence allowed her to see the world more clearly than any other raptor. She could see that the world was beautiful. However, to see the world, you had to be alive, and life brought a harshness that was incomparable to anything but itself. So what was life through her eyes? Some kind of strange paradox – smack in the middle of true beauty – completely void of any.

Her thoughts suddenly silenced.

She didn't show it, but she could sense something following her. She didn't know how she hadn't sensed it earlier, or what it was, but it was there. Silence continued leisurely walking along until the follower had the nerve to come up right behind her.

Suddenly, she whipped around and grabbed the stalker's neck with her jaws before hurling it to the ground with vicious force. Her killing claw was already on its throat, but she stopped when she realized it was Unseen.

That was a bit of a shock. Unseen had been reported dead hours ago, and she did look a lot more messed up than she was that morning, but still very alive.

Silence stepped off the young raptor and Unseen slowly rolled onto her feet, still pretty sore from the day's ordeals. She immediately walked up to her leader and deposited the ceratosaurus egg at her feet.

Silence froze, staring at the object in a quiet spell of shock.

Unseen knelt down and waited to receive the leadership mark, but moments passed and it didn't come. She looked up at the one-armed raptor in question but to her surprise, Silence seemed to shrink away from the eye contact. She looked… was it even possible? – _**uneasy**__._ Unseen couldn't believe it. Silence the unshakable legend was having trouble looking her in the eye. That was absolutely alarming.

Unseen got to her feet and quickly made two fast clucking noises followed by one slightly longer one. For them that noise was a kind of universal question, and Unseen was trying to ask what was wrong.

Silence hesitated but finally managed to look her daughter in the eye, an apologetic worry staining her gaze. And her eyes… their aura of authority was gone**.**

The two raptors turned to see their pack members walking onto the scene. The several other nominees' heads hung as if weighed down by some invisible burden but Virulent stood tall, a crest-like marking carved around the one she had received that morning. It was the complete mark – the mark of leadership.

Unseen's blood pretty much froze in her veins. She couldn't believe this was happening.

Virulent squawked a command and the failed candidates lowered themselves to the ground. Unseen obeyed, but trembled slightly as she did so.

This done, Virulent slowly walked among the nominees, as if trying to decide which one to deal with first. She came to a male candidate and placed her killing claw on the back of his neck. Raptor skin was hard to penetrate, even to other raptors, but she pressed down with all her weight and Unseen winced at the sound of a short squeal silenced by a horrible crunch.

Unseen didn't need to look. She knew the raptor was dead and she knew she was going to die along with the rest of the failed nominees, in the exact same way. She was terrified, and the feeling was both sickening and surreal at the same time, but she couldn't run. She **had** to submit**.** Her pack instinct was too strong. Breaching it was completely unheard of.

So she sat there and another sickening chill coursed through her nerves as she heard another raptor die. She closed her eyes and tried to block it out, but she couldn't, and it was her turn.

Virulent stepped in front of her little sister and noticed the ceratosaurus egg at her feet. She crushed it underfoot and placed her killing claw on the back of Unseen's neck. But she didn't press down. Not immediately. She was savoring the moment, which raised Unseen's anticipation to a torturous level. Unseen's heart thumped in her ears as Virulent began to push down, almost gently at first, until her blade slowly penetrated and sunk deeper and deeper into the younger raptor's skin.

Like I said, Unseen's instinct was a rule. There was no way she in herself could break its grip. But the next moment was completely unaccounted for. Whether it be a freak occurrence or some divine intervention. She couldn't know. Not yet. But it happened, and it changed everything.

Suddenly she slipped out of Virulent's claw and wrenched her sister's ankle with a rapid twist of her jaws. The older raptor buckled and fell as Unseen dashed into the bushes. Hatred boiled in Virulent's eyes as she screeched a command and the utahraptors stormed into the jungle after the traitor.

Bushes beat against Unseen's face as she rushed through the forest that had come alive with the sounds of pursuing raptors. She couldn't think straight, but she still knew the area.

She leaped down into a dried out river bed and traveled along its length. Soon, she could hear the sound of rushing waters and knew where she was. She hopped out of the river bed and rounded a large rock before something suddenly slammed into her side, knocking her down and pinning her to the ground.

She looked up to see Footed Wind standing over her, his killing claw raised high on the foot with which he held her neck to the ground. His eyes cast an accusing glare as he hissed a triple cluck, asking why she was doing this.

Her mouth opened, quivering slightly, but she couldn't answer, for she didn't know why.

He didn't care, though. She'd done one of the most unthinkable things a utahraptor could do. In his mind, she didn't deserve to live.

He raised his head and called to the other raptors, announcing he'd caught her when her tail came whipping across his face. He stumbled to the side as she scrambled to her feet. She knew she couldn't outrun him. He was like his namesake – the wind. The jungle terrain was warped and tricky but no matter how tricky it was it wouldn't slow him down, and he was one of the fastest raptors in the pack. He was also a formidable fighter, but he was too quick to act and underestimated an opponent's cunning. That was his weakness.

She dashed to the left as if trying to escape him. He bought it and rushed towards her with amazing speed. At the last second, she pulled back and barely missed his jaws as he passed in front of her. Having timed it perfectly, she clamped her jaws around his neck during the split-moment it was before her and used his momentum to swing him head first into the boulder beside them. He fell, dazed, while she ran off as fast as she could. How ironic it was that she'd always had a slight crush on him.

She heard Virulent cackle and screech a protocol and she knew what they were planning. Her sister was sending ahead the pack's fastest raptors to overtake and intercept her while the rest would try their best to close in on her from all other directions. Chances were they'd surrounded her already, considering the time she'd wasted on Footed Wind. Besides, if he'd caught up with her, how many others were there right on her heels? Her chances of outrunning them here were slim, which was why she was heading for the field she'd passed on her way to the ceratosaurus territory that morning, and she was practically there.

Unseen burst into the open, tearing across the plains at over 60 miles per hour under the panoramic view of the sunset sky. She looked behind her to see a rising number of at least twenty utahraptors emerge and follow her at a similar speed. She pressed harder and accelerated, quickly approaching a mixed herd of various different herbivorous dinosaurs peacefully grazing on the pastures. Needless to say, utahraptors were by far some of the fastest land animals on the planet – faster than cheetahs and able to run for much greater distances. That was thanks to the sometimes fluorescent-looking yellow on their backs which was normally discreet enough not to stand out during camouflage but brightened when they were on the run, reflecting enough sun light and heat to prevent them from overheating, similarly to the white on ostriches' backs. This said, she had reached the herd in virtually no time.

Unseen let out a loud snarl and the herd was immediately plunged into a state of panic. She ran in their midst, trying to use them as a smoke screen but the pursuers deftly weaved between the stampeding animals just as she did.

She whipped to the side and darted under the raised foot of a brachiosaurus in mid step, forcing a few of the pursuers to fall back to avoid its crushing force as it came down in front of them. Unseen leaped onto the side of a galloping gallimimus, hitching a ride on the speedy theropod with her claws. She looked to the left and to the right. The raptors were everywhere, and closing in. It was only a matter of time before they managed to pin her down.

Unseen bit the two-legged sprinter causing it to rear up and fling itself about, nearly treading on a few raptors as it tried to shake of off. Using the distraction she slipped off the gallimimus and darted away.

The other raptors were quick to follow when they heard a mighty bellow and looked to the sky to see something huge silhouetted like a shadow against the blazing sky coming down a them. They jumped back as that 'something' pound down in front of them embedding itself into the earth with a heavy thud of impact. The weapon was hauled back to its owner whose eyes blazed with a bull-like fury. The 8-ton armored beast raised its head and let out another deep, undulating cry that seemed to shake the very heavens. If ever there were ever **one **animal on these fields stubborn enough to take on a pack of raptors, it was this. Its 'weapon' was a clubbed tail strong enough to shatter T Rex bone. For this reason, they called it what meant 'Thunder Tail', but humans knew its species as the 'ankylosaurus'.

The utahraptors finally hit a full stop. None of them wanted to approach this legend, but Unseen was sticking as close to it as she could without being trampled or crushed by a blow of its tail. She was obviously trying to use it as a game-changer, but between the pack that now surrounded her and the ankylosaurus, she was bound to end up dead sooner than later. But Virulent wanted the pleasure of killing Unseen herself.

Virulent commanded a male to go around the beast and attack it from behind. He hesitated. It sounded like suicide to him, but when she repeated her command (this time with a death threat), he quickly obliged and ran to the back of the beast but no sooner had he done so than there was a ghastly 'KRACK!' and his body flew a good distance before landing limp on the grass.

Unseen stared in bewilderment at the fallen raptor. It was obvious he was a decoy for the creature but she couldn't understand how her sister was able to do these things without so much as a second thought.

Her mind still dulled by the thought, she was unable to react when she saw Virulent heading for her with devastating speed. Her sister threw her jaws into her neck, throwing Unseen to the ground with the sheer force. But that snapped Unseen out of her trance and she kicked Virulent off with explosive force. Virulent came to a standstill, staring at her little sister with a strange kind of intrigue as the latter scrambled to her feet, feathers bristling as she snarled with a rage she'd never shown before. Unseen had never fought back like this. Virulent didn't quite know what to make of it for a few seconds, but the time passed and her berserker-like anger flashed into her eyes.

They both jumped and the hammer-like tail of the ankylosaurus swung beneath them, but neither broke their gaze. Neither could focus on anything but the other.

Two raptors landed and immediately rushed each other, lashing out with all the ferocity of their conflicting hearts. Virulent tripped Unseen with her tail and darted away, leaving Unseen to scamper out of the way just before the ankylosaurus's tail slammed down in her place. She leaped over the beast and Virulent followed suit, only to find she had lost sight of Unseen when she reached the other side. Virulent looked about, single-mindedly trying to find her sister when the latter suddenly blindsided her with a killing claw, Tearing open a large wound on her side. Virulent fell over as Unseen moved in to finish the job when faster than she could react Virulent's tail flicked across her face, embedding three poisonous feathers in her skin. Unseen staggered backwards as Virulent jumped to her feet and battered Unseen again and again with her venomous quills until she kicked the younger raptor to the floor with devastating force.

Unseen tried to get up, woozy and weakened by the toxin, but Virulent clamped her jaws around her sister's neck, having her in a very vulnerable position. She squeezed with all her might, completely cutting off Unseen's air supply just as she had that morning. Unseen couldn't break free and began to panic. However, instead of trying harder, she began fighting to push her body as low to the ground as she could. Virulent was puzzled. Unseen was only putting herself in an even more dangerous position, but Virulent continued to squeeze without so much as a second thought. She could feel Unseen's energy draining away when a shadow caught the side of her eye. Virulent barely looked before the ankylosaurus's tail slammed into her side with shattering force, knocking her clean off of Unseen who was too close to the ground for it to hit her.

The older raptor sailed through the air until she landed about thirty meters away. She tried to get up but could only shrieked in agony at the unimaginable pain that followed. Her hip bone was completely shattered.

The other raptors were so shocked and occupied with Virulent's defeat that before they could even look for her, Unseen had done what she always did best.

She disappeared.

* * *

**So sorry, guys. I've had this chapter on me for at least a month and I'd been trying to post it but it just wouldn't show up. Then I discovered the problem wasn't - I just forgot how to post properly (Oh brother).**

**Anyway, the reason why I may take a while to reply, post chapters or act like I'm still in the land of the living is because I live on this tiny little deserted island called Barbados where I've been shipwrecked since birth, and apparently my computer couldn't survive the hostile conditions (i.e. my computer's been broken down for months and I've been having to use LIBRARY computers to compensate - unbelievabale, huh?).**

**I'd like to say thanks to IHateMarySueSoooooMuch for actually reading this AND being my first reviewer. Your comments have REALLY inspired me to keep going strong. Can't forget you either, old chuck. And humans? Hmmm... we'll have to see about that now won't we?**

**Also the facts presented in this story are based on the extensive research I did before writing. Some facts are fictional, some scientific, and many fabricated by me based on fact, presumption and poetic liscense.**


	4. Chapter 4

**If you love your life in this world, you will lose it. If you hate it, you will keep it for eternity.**

**?**

Chapter 4

The Alien

Unseen's feet beat against the moist soil as she lightly sprinted through the dark silence of the jungle. She'd been running for hours without rest and the night was by far no longer young. Now she was far beyond utahraptor territory, it an alien woodland where giant sequoia redwoods reached for the cold, nocturnal heavens.

Only now was she able to convince herself to slow down and stop. Panting heavily, she could do nothing but ask herself: **WHAT WAS SHE DOING?** Running away when you're supposed to be killed meant death all the same. Defying the leader meant a much more _**painful**_ death. **Wounding** the leader meant… meant…

She shook her head and tried to get rid of those condemning thoughts but she couldn't. Her mind wouldn't tune out. It just kept repeating her thoughts over and over while fabricating new ones until it all blurred into a jarring confusion. Then this deadly sense of isolation began creep in, closing in all around her until she could literally feel it strangling her with its dark, icy fingers. Unseen was panicking. It was as if she was being yanked away from existence and forced into a place where she was utterly and completely separated from everyone and everything in life. All the while she had only this dim sense that something was fatally wrong.

There was a reason why you didn't see lone utahraptors just running about on Isla Sorna. They were pack animals to the core. Losing a pack was like losing a limb. The wound was more psychological, but the shock was far greater. In fact, her mind and body were quickly short circuiting, and it was killing her.

Unseen could no longer tell if she was alive or not. Her eyes were open but she could scarcely see anything. Only this constant, impenetrable black that seemed envelope everything around her. Her heart was literally about to stop when she cried out Something and it all went away.

The darkness of death lifted and her pulse returned to normal while the woodland night faded back into view.

Breathing heavily, Unseen tried to compose herself. What just happened? She was about to die, as far as she could tell, but then she called on… _Something_ and it just stopped. But she'd never said or heard that 'Something' in her life. Somehow, though, she recognized it. It was some kind of Secret Name, a lot like her own. Now, Unseen's title could mean 'invisible' or 'hidden' as well as it did 'unseen', but in its truest sense, it meant 'the Being of Hope; the Substance of Things Unseen', or 'the Unseen Element'. It was a hidden meaning – one which every raptor knew, but no one understood. That's what made her name so special.

She tried to call that Secret Name again but as quickly as It popped into her head, It was gone, and the lifeless silence of the woodland reminded her that she was completely alone.

Disheartened, and confused, Unseen slinked into a hollow at the base of a mighty redwood, huddling up so she could rest while keeping warm and out of sight. She hadn't felt this harmless in a long time. Even at a very young age she always figured she just had to grow older, stronger, and work really heard until someday she'd earn her rank among the utahraptors. Maybe even become a leader. Perhaps Virulent would finally respect her. She was going to become fearless, never helpless, and it would be all because of her but now there was nothing. No pack, no life, no nothing. Besides, any utahraptor who saw the mark on her temple would know that she was a failure who needed to be destroyed. What difference did it make, though. She was as good as dead anyway.

However, no matter what happened, she couldn't cry. No animal could 'cry'. Only humans could shed tears in this way and Unseen was no exception. Instead, she had to let her emotions build in an almost maddening tension and wait for it to slowly seep away.

Unseen's stomach growled for the umpteenth time, reminding her that she hadn't had the chance to eat – for weeks. As much as she wanted to just sit there, she needed to start thinking about food.

She raised her head and, much to her convenience, spotted an archaeoraptor clinging to the side of a small tree, fast asleep. This small, feathered creature was a kind of 'dino bird', in layman's terms. It had emerald-green feathers with a leafy pattern and a flash of yellow hidden in the underside of its tail and wings. Irregular fringes of dark-brown added just a touch of dried-up-leaf to the look. In many ways, it resembled a modern exotic bird at a distance. But it also had teeth, no beak, little clawed fingers on its wings, a long, feathered tail, was **bigger** than most exotic birds and had an overall look that bore striking similarities to a raptor. It could fly too, of course, but not quite with the same grace and dexterity seen in modern birds. She'd never seen this kind of dino bird before, but if it was anything like the ones back where she used to live, she knew how to catch it.

It was a little too high to reach, so she made a colourful twitter that sounded like the dino birds she knew and hoped it was enough to get its attention.

Sure enough, the archaeoraptor awoke with a chirp at the familiar sound. Its little head turned 280 degrees, bobbing about as it tried to locate the source. It didn't see another dino bird, but it quickly spotted what looked like a small snake, or worm, or something, wriggling about as it protruded from the ground. The Archie was interested. This looked like a pretty good snack to it.

The dino bird dropped off the side of the tree, floating to the ground in a lazy movement that made it look like a large, falling leaf. Then it switched to a raptor-like stealth as it crept through the bushes towards the little snake. Unseen couldn't help but admire this brilliant little creature. Its hunting technique was just so clever, but apparently it wasn't clever enough to realize what was really going on here.

The Archie was only three feet away from its prey when its stopped short. It tilted its head to the side as it noticed – this was the funniest looking snake…_**thing**_ it had ever seen. It was green and appeared to have… large blue feathers lying flat on its body? Then it realized that the 'snake' wasn't sticking out of the ground at all, but rather it turned sharply at its base, connected to a long stalk of some kind that was perfectly camoufladged with the ground's tones. That 'stalk' grew thicker and thicker as you looked further down its length until it lifted slightly off the ground and joined with something at the base of a nearby redwood. This was strange. Whatever it was attached to was coloured like the redwood, but didn't _quite_ seem to fit in with the bark that surrounded it.

Unseen stared at it. It stared at her. Their eyes met for a second. Apparently it was a little smarter than she'd thought.

The archaeoraptor jumped back with a frightened chirp just before Unseen's jaws snapped shut in its place. It tried to fly but she pinned its wing to the ground with her foot. She was about to eat it when it suddenly bit her, forcing her to release it with yelp.

The critter shot through the underbrush with Unseen in hot pursuit. She could tell it wasn't as good at flying as a regular bird and couldn't get too high up with her chasing it at that speed. At least not without running the risk of her snatching it out of the air. But the dino bird was also very fast and surprisingly maneuverable, combining running, crawling and jumping with extremely acrobatic bursts of flight to always stay one step ahead of her deadly jaws.

Soon, it made the mistake of trying to fly out of reach and she leaped into the air, grabbing its tail feathers with her jaws. The little dino bird shrieked and wildly flapped about in a desperate attempt to get loose. Unseen was determined not to let go but there was little she could do before the feathers snapped off in her mouth and the panicked pre-bird clumsily fluttered away.

Frustrated, she spat out the feathers and tore towards the creature with devastating speed. Both dinos were moving up a slight incline and Unseen was catching up rapidly.

She was about to reach it when it jumped and she stopped short, finding herself at the edge of a massive cliff, on a rocky ridge that jutted out above the jungle that lay an immeasurable distance below.

She could only watch as the little Archie escaped across the open air. She belted out an unrestrained screech of anger towards the dino bird, but its response was quite unexpected. It turned to her, hovering on the spot, and mockingly made the exact same colourful twitter she had used to lure it! Then it dropped out of the air and dove towards the dark jungle below, looking for a new place to sleep.

Annoyed to no end, Unseen lay there, feeling utterly defeated and rotten.

A soothing but icy nightly breeze trickled across her face. For the first time she really noticed the kind of view she had at this height. The breathtaking full moon hung a little to the left in the distance, illuminating the clouds with a misty, ethereal glow. Below it stood the shadowy shape of a mountain and even farther, to its right, she could see the sea shimmering softly under the moonlight. Two nocturnal quetzalcoatluses soared in the backdrop, almost motionless, the ghostly grey of lunar light silhouetting the sky behemoths' wings.

Unseen couldn't tear her eyes away from this sight, but it didn't change her situation. She just didn't understand. How could the world continue on with this façade of peace and beauty when there was even one tortured soul in existence? Her mind was quick to answer. It didn't care.

Still very tired, her eyes began to close as she drifted into a light sleep, but there was this annoying, very quiet droning noise in the background. She stirred in discomfort but the droning only grew just a _little_ bit louder, and you know how the edge of sleep has a way of amplifying small sounds by at least a million times.

Unseen sat up, unable to cope with that noise in the back of her head, so she decided to listen to it – maybe she could at least figure out what it was. It was low… constant… a little like a fly. No, more like a bumblebee, but not quite…

It grew a little louder with every passing second but Unseen still couldn't link it. Didn't sound like any animal she'd heard before. Even Jumping Sound couldn't make such a continuous, seamless noise for that long without stopping. Wait, that was it! It wasn't an animal. It was... still. getting. louder.

Unseen turned towards the jungle behind her. She began to feel a little uncomfortable. It was definitely coming from that direction, and getting closer, fast, but she still couldn't see anything. She snarled into the jungle, warning the invisible noise-maker not to come any closer, but her voice was quickly overshadowed by the intensity of the noise. The throttling drone rose to a tremendous roar. There was nowhere to run. It was right on top of her!

Unseen ducked as the Thing roared overhead, its silhouette ripping across the full-moon sky. She looked up and froze with fear and awe. It was a massive flying beast, but unlike any bird or pterodactyl she had ever seen. It had wings but didn't flap, yet it managed to fly faster than most of the airborne animals she knew of. In fact, its stiff body didn't move or flex like an animal at all. Its skin was some kind of shiny materiel that glistened in the moonlight – the complete opposite of what she thought skin was supposed to look like. The noise it made… Its appearance… She almost wondered if it was a living creature at all. But it had to be a creature, didn't it? What kind of inanimate object could move like that?

The Flying Beast blared into the distance, slowly turning above the endless moon-drenched plains of treetops. Her adjustable telescopic vision was just enough to spot a tiny figure shoot out of the top of the beast, falling only a short distance before a black thing poofed open above it and gently floated towards the ground. The Flying Beast kept going, but slowly angled itself downwards until it flew straight into the jungle, exploding in a brilliant blast of yellow and orange fireball that startled her a bit. She looked back at the tiny figure and watched as it drifted and disappeared beneath the trees.

Unseen sat herself down, quietly trying to digest what had just happened. She gazed at the billows of smoke rising from the Flying Beast's hidden remains, as if assuring herself it was real, then at the spot where the Figure had landed, as if expecting it to pop out of the canopy as some giant monster or something (her funny little imagination).

On one hand and instinct was telling her to flee – this thing was obviously not of her world and she should have nothing to do with it. On the other hand, she was full of curiosity, and needed to find out more about whatever it was she just witnessed.

A wiser raptor would have turned and run away, so she figured she probably wasn't all that wise after all.

Unseen's mind was made up so she rose and tried to figure out where to go first. The fallen Flying Beast was a bit farther away and seemed to have been destroyed in the crash, so she decided to first check out the thing she saw floating from it before it went down.

She took a second to memorize the positions of the destinations. Done. Now she looked for the fastest way down the cliff side. There was a large fallen sequoia redwood hanging over the edge by its roots not half a mile away. Perfect.

She made her way towards the three-hundred-foot tree and reached it in no time. After jumping onto the massive trunk, the young raptor trotted down its length. But there was too steep an incline and she wasn't being careful enough. Too fast, too eager. She quickly tripped and succumbed to her own momentum, tumbling uncontrollably down the make-shift bridge. In just a few little moments she fell off the end of the tree (it didn't even reach the ground) and plunged into the canopy twenty feet down. Unseen's body rolled and crashed through the painful assortment of branches and leaves before falling flat on her back. Wow. She was beginning to see why she might not have made the best leader in the long run.

Shaking it off, Unseen got to her feet and began her trek across the jungle. Even in this unfamiliar setting she didn't get lost or confused. Raptors had an incredible sense of direction, in part thanks to magnetic receptors in their heads that made them extremely sensitive to the Earth's geomagnetic field. Much like many migratory birds this gave them a kind of natural compass. Combined with their brain's ability to judge distance and even directions travelled based on their body's momentum, a raptor could probably be carried halfway across the globe – blind folded – and still have a pretty good idea of where they came from.

Within less than ten minutes Unseen had reached the spot where the Floating Figure had landed. At least, she thought it was, but she couldn't see any sign of anything unusual anywhere.

A bit puzzled, she spontaneously looked up and jumped back as she saw something huge and unnatural above her, but calmed down when she realized it wasn't alive. It was some kind of massive black spread somewhat tangled amongst the branches of the canopy. If she were able to read, she would have observed the label 'Dino Soar' printed on the side facing down to her. She couldn't be sure, but it seemed pretty probably that this was the big black object that poofed open above the Falling Figure. There was something else too. A very strange scent was on the air.

She sniffed the ground, following the scent in a few small circles until she drew back and snorted when she reached a hotspot where it was strongest. It was a pungent odor, one which she found very repulsive and almost noxious. In fact it smelled more like some kind of plant, not a creature at all.

She carefully examined the hotspot. It was a marking in the soil, perhaps a footprint, but a very bizarre footprint if anything. But if this was a footprint, why didn't it smell like it was made by an animal?

Ignoring the offsetting zing she sniffed the footprint-in-question. Her sense of smell was roughly the equivalent of a bloodhound, but it worked differently. She had to taste the air with her tongue to get a gist of the direction but her nose was where she boiled the scent down to its juicy details. So she had to inhale through her mouth and nose interchangeably if she wanted to get the best out of any smell. A primitive system it was, but no less on the cutting edge of biological engineering.

Her snout was glued to the floor as she moved along the path of scented footprints, breathing out through the small vents on her back so as not to disturb the stream of odour.

She quickly came upon a small ravine about 20 feet across. The tracks seemed to end here. Could the animal have fallen in? No, she could see visible signs that it had turned around, backed up a bit and taken a running start before disappearing off the edge completely. If it had fallen, it did so in an attempt to get across.

She easily leaped the ravine (raptors were great jumpers) and continued her investigation on the other side. Yup, the creature had made it. The tracks turned sharply and led to a rocky wall about 25 feet up. Unseen groaned. She may have been a good jumper but she was a pretty poor climber. Regardless, the trail led up so up was where she had to go.

With much grunting and embarrassing blundering Unseen somehow managed to… _almost_ make it to the top before unceremoniously plopping back where she started. She growled with irritation. Maybe she should stick to her natural talent and see where that got her.

The sapphire-eyed raptor leaped as high onto the wall as she could, grabbing onto an exposed root near the top of the wall. She pulled herself up parrot-fashion and collapsed onto floor, feeling totally out of it. After few seconds she rolled onto her feet and searched for the trail, only to find that it had completely disappeared. How did this make any sense? Tracks don't just disappear like that, especially on this kind of soil. She tried to pick up a scent but the odour seemed to be all over the place, completely throwing her off.

She paused, trying to figure out what to do next. Suddenly she noticed the wind was changing direction. That meant whatever she couldn't smell downwind was now upwind. She could take advantage of that.

She scampered up a semi-large rock and sniffed the air. The pungent odour was coming from just up ahead, and it was very, _very_ close.

Unseen jumped down from the rock, landing with a soundless grace as her mode changed entirely. She carried herself like a shadow, moving with the flow of the plant life caught in the slightly agitated wind – stopping and flitting, ducking and swaying in a beautiful but deadly Dance of the Bushes. Dark streaks appeared across her body, gently gliding about like the shadows of the woodland. Now she was one with her surroundings. Invisible and truly unseen.

Her dance became more wary as she approached the source of the scent. With bated breath she slid her head between the last of the bushes and froze as her eyes fell on a being she was never supposed to meet.

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**I literally have 30 seconds to say this so... enjoy the chapter. Had to fight tooth and nail to get it here. Don't forget to REVIEW and tell me what you thing. Until next time.**


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